Traversing the uncommon boulevard: entrepreneurial trajectory of decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs)
Kunle Francis Oguntegbe, Nadia Di Paola, Roberto Vona · Technology Analysis and Strategic Management · 2023
Blockchain technology has revolutionised the ownership structures and business models of young companies, leading to the emergence of new digital entrepreneurship in innovative digital companies known as decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs). This study examines the influence of blockchain use on the entrepreneurial structure and business models of DAOs. Following an inductive approach guided by the underlying theoretical framework of a nonfungible token (NFT) enabled entrepreneurship and the token economy business model, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of /the whitepapers of 22 selected DAOs obtained from the DeepDAO platform. The results reveal that blockchain assists the growth of digital companies by decentralising their ownership structure and improving their value propositions through NFT and a smart contract-enabled consensus mechanism. However, market uncertainties and the non-liquidity of tokens were identified as significant barriers to implementing DAOs. Three propositions emerged from this study with meaningful contributions to the theory and practice of entrepreneurship.